22nd Meeting
of the
Fire & Rescue Statistics User Group
held on
25 April 2007 at 10:30 am
in
Eland House, London, Room LMR3 ABC
|
Mr. G. Evans |
Chair, FBU |
|
Mr. A. Paish |
World Fire Statistics Centre |
|
Mr. S. Emery |
English Heritage |
|
Mr. D. Sugg |
Communities and Local Government |
|
Mr. G. Gower-Kerslake |
Communities and Local Government (retired) |
|
Ms. S. Pantry |
Fire Information Group |
|
Prof. A. Everton |
University of Central Lancashire |
|
Ms. S. Wright, Secretary |
Communities and Local Government |
|
Mr. J. Mann |
Chief Fire and Rescue Adviser's Unit |
|
Mr. R. Tilthorpe |
FIA |
|
Mr. P. Bhoobun |
Communities and Local Government |
|
Mr. T. Humphries |
ABI |
|
Mr. D. Pember-Finn |
CFOA |
|
Mr. R. Broadbent |
CFOA |
|
Mr. M Rowan |
LFEPA |
|
No. |
ACTION |
OPEN/CLOSED |
|---|---|---|
|
19/1 |
Samantha to send round the latest FRD organogram, for information. |
Ongoing |
OUTSTANDING ACTIONS SUMMARY FROM LAST MEETING - 9 January 2007
|
No. |
ACTION |
OPEN/CLOSED |
|---|---|---|
|
22/1 |
Preetam to continue working on the website and send screen shots for comment once they are available. |
Open |
|
22/2 |
Samantha to liaise with Simon Hunt regarding the date of the next meeting and let members know. |
Open |
1 Chair's Introduction
1.1 Glyn welcomed everyone to the meeting. He welcomed Tim Humphries from the Association of British Insurers, Darren Sugg of the CLG to their first meeting.
2 Apologies:
|
2.1 |
Mr. D. Rae |
FSC |
|
Mr. M Coull |
Grampian FRS |
|
|
Mr. M. Robinson |
Chief Fire and Rescue Adviser's Unit |
|
|
Mr D. Smith |
FIA |
|
|
Mr. D. Beverley |
FBU |
3 Minutes of the 21st Meeting
Accuracy:
3.1 The minutes of the previous meeting have been amended to show minor changes and are attached with these minutes for reference.
P4, 7.5 - Amend to say 'Communities and Local Government', not 'We'.
P4, 8.1 - Change 'members' to 'membership'.
P4, 8.1 - Change 'e.g. warehouse' to 'e.g. considering the warehouse problem', for clarification.
P5 - Date of next meeting to say 'Wednesday'.
4 Matters Arising
4.1 Glyn informed the Group that he has contacted Jane Milne regarding ABI representation on the Group. Tim Humphries was introduced as the new member and welcomed to the Group.
4.2 There was still a concern how FOSIs were to be managed after the disbanding of HMFSI and the start of the Chief Fire Advisors Unit. Darren confirmed that the IRS will collect FOSI information and the rest of the data will be collected in the usual way.
There was a concern that detail and original information from the FOSI would be lost in the statistics. This has been noted as a concern and will be looked into.
Glyn said that a message needs to go back to the Unit regarding the importance of the FOSI collection.
4.3 It was asked whether information would be available to give to insurance companies. Darren said that information on individual fires would not be available, only grouped types of property or location types as this is information that is publicly available. This information will probably be published on the website in the same way as current collection. This will be in the format of quarterly reports and an annual report. The statistics should be published in a more timely manner as IRS input and transfer to CLG will be quicker.
4.4 Action 21/5 has been removed due to the passing of Tom Wilmot who was in the process of producing a draft at the time. This action will not be taken on by anyone else.
4.5 Sheila Pantry asked whether item 8.3 in the last minutes, regarding presentations on research in Governmental Safety matters, had been progresses. Glyn said that it had not, but suggested Cath Reynolds be invited to the next meeting to give a presentation to the Group.
Anthony Burd is leaving in May on a three month career break. Brian Martin may also be able to provide details on these projects.
Sheila also mentioned that HSL H&S Laboratories are currently doing interesting work and it may be worthwhile someone coming to do a presentation to the Group on their projects as they have lots of reports on their website. Glyn said that HSL, BRE and CLG are all doing interesting work, but hoped that these projects were not overlapping.
5 A tribute to Tom Wilmot
5.1 Glyn gave a tribute to Tom Wilmot. Glyn attended Tom's funeral on 18 April 2007 and the memorial service sheet was passed round for members to see.
Tom, who's full name is Reginald Thomas Dorrien Wilmot, passed away aged 92 years in March. He will be remembered with great fondness by all. He remained very active in public life up until his death, still working and contributing to various organisations, including the City of London Institute and Guilds.
Tony Paish also gave a short tribute.
6 Retirement and replacement of Group Chair
6.1 This is Glyn Evans last meeting as Chair of the Group. Glyn officially retires at the end of July and in correlation with Ian Cox, Chair of the CFOA committee, has indicated that Simon Hunt is prepared to take over as Chair for the FRSUG on behalf of CFOA.
Glyn asked the Group members present if anyone wished to be considered for the role of Chair in his place. No one indicated that they were, so Glyn recommended the appointment of Simon to the position with effect from the end of the meeting.
Simon is a Senior Officer with Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service and is currently on secondment to CLG within FRD working on the Building Disaster Assessment Group (BDAG) and other fire related projects.
The Group all expressed their approval for Simon to take the position of Chair of the FRSUG.
Geoffrey Gower-Kerslake spoke on behalf of the Group thanking Glyn for his work and efforts and everyone agreed that it had been a great pleasure working with him and wished him well for the future.
7 Draft constitution and election of Group Chair and Deputy Chair
7.1 Sheila and Glyn have produced a draft constitution for members to comment on. Tony Paish said that he had some comments upon it which were primarily editorial in nature but rather than delay the meeting by discussing them there and then he would provide them electronically for Glyn, Simon and Samantha to consider.
7.2 The Group agreed that a constitution was required and Sheila suggested putting it on the new website as it gives credibility to the work we are doing. This idea was welcomed.
7.3 No further comments were received at the meeting. Glyn pointed out that the draft constitution will need to be approved by CLG.
8 Website content and discussion
8.1 Preetam Bhoobun from CLG is creating pages for the website and asked the Group if they had any preference for colour, graphics, content or logos.
It was agreed the site should incorporate a maximum of three colours, to include red and will include a font size adjuster. Charts and tables will be exempt from the three colour limit.
An attempt will be made to link the website to pages of the CLG website where the statistical bulletins are published.
8.2 Web links to The Royal Statistical Society, FIG, FPA, LFEPA, English Heritage and Historical Scotland were suggested once the site is up and running.
8.3 Preetam will issue screen-shot examples once he has produced them for members to comment on. Glyn will act as first point of contact for suggestions.
9 Fire Statistics UK 2005
9.1 This has been sent to members and was published on 26 March 2007. Hard copies are available from Darren Sugg.
10 Update on IRS Pilot
10.1 Darren Sugg gave a brief update on progress with the IRS pilot.
10.2 Impact Assessments have been received from most pilot FRSs. The Pilot was successful and most FRSs used the system without much issue.
10.3 The IRS has incorporated an improved mapping function and the Special Serivce type list has been updated. More questions are asked on RTCs as this is becoming an increasingly important area of interest for FRSs.
10.4 The system is on target to go live at the end of July 2007 and all FRSs will come on board between then and July 2008. Ben Pledger and Richard Edwards of CLG have been having regular meetings with FRSs to ascertain their implementation timescales and any issues they may face.
10.5 It was asked whether Regional Control Rooms would be affected. Darren said CLG have been working very closely with them and they will link into our system.
11 AOB
11.1 Sheila Pantry said FIG is interested in enlarging their Group with people who have fire acquisition methods. There are concerns that fire information is disappearing. It was hoped the FSC library would act as an archive. If anyone on this Group knows of fire information that is being destroyed, please get it sent to the College.
Glyn suggested that this sort of information could be put on our website.
11.2 Mitchell Rowan said he had been attending Met FRSs quarterly meetings on statistics. If anyone wants information, let him know.
11.3 Steve Emery spoke about an information day for owners of country houses at Hampshire FRS, who were undertaking fire demonstrations to show the effectiveness of sprinklers and water mist systems.
English Heritage has been working with Historical Scotland, the Norwegian Property Board and COWI to create an interactive database which holds records on fire door tests.
A registered practitioner can then enter dimensions of any door and the database will show how long it is expected to last in a BS476 fire test.
It is hoped that eventually one will be able to enter dimensions of rooms and feed in structural details to see how long the door will last in a real fire.
11.4 Geoffrey Gower-Kerslake tendered his resignation from the FRSUG with effect from the end of the meeting. Glyn reluctantly accepted and thanked him for his contributions to the work of the Group.
11.5 Rosemary Everton also tendered her resignation from the FRSUG with effect from the end of the meeting. Glyn again reluctantly accepted and thanked her for her contributions to the work of the Group.
11.6 Tony Paish raised the point that the WFSC needs to be represented at the Group. However, he is in discussion with another UK organisation who he hopes will assist him initially following Tom's demise and ultimately take over the work of the WFSC from him so that he to can retire. He hopes this will be arranged by the end of 2007. In that case, a new WFSC representative would attend one further FRSUG meeting with Tony and then Tony would retire from the Group.
Date and location of Next Meeting
TBC - September 2007